Yesterday, the freaky dreams continued with my dream that I intentionally chopped off half of my forefinger to see if using generic Neosporin (that is, not the real thing) would facilitate the reattachment of it. Apparently it worked quite well -- the healing began almost immediately -- prompting me to replicate the action several times. However, on the last time, my severed finger fell on the floor and got slightly dirty. I went to wash it as a result -- but the water was so hot that it effectively cooked my finger, leaving it the flesh the color and consistency of smoked salmon. I grew more and more disheartened with each successive failed attempt to reattach my finger... and when it remained stiff and began to turn purple, I gave up and sadly reconciled myself to the loss. I then resolved to call myself "Wesley of the Nine Fingers" and began singing the corresponding tune from the animated version of The Return of the King with my own name in place of Frodo's. I was still humming it when I woke up with my finger intact.

And for the fun of it (and because I apparently cannot sleep), I went and recorded two short mp3s from said animation for you. The first, "Frodo of the Nine Fingers", is the song that I was singing in the dream. There is a much longer version of the song at the beginning of the film that recounts Bilbo's adventures before the story joins Frodo and Samwise en route to Mount Doom, but this is the shorter and more lowering version that I have a tendency to sing at times (I haven't got the other one memorized). And then here is the extended version of "The Bearer of the Ring", though a shorter version that only includes up to "shrink with hate" plays at several points in the cartoon in various tempos. Anyway, enjoy!

Okay, I was just going to write about this, but then I figured what the heck and decided to do an impromptu AUDIO POST about the ridiculousness and insensitivity of the bit that I caught from today's Oprah episode. There is some bad language (nothing terribly graphic, though), so you might want to turn your speakers down or cover the ears of small children in the vicinity or not listen to this at work.

I should clarify my comments in the audio post and say that I can understand why someone would want to interview this guy, but not within the context of a daytime talk show (except to provide more sensationalized crap for the Stepford Wives crowd, which was obviously Oprah's motive). For example, if one were performing some scholarly research the nature of mental illness crimes, I can definitely see interviewing this guy. The rotten kinds of questions that Oprah asked, however, would still probably be off-limits. Good lord.

I have also found that, oddly enough, placing the microphone behind my chair -- as opposed to on my desk in front of me -- helps to reduce the amount of noise in the recording. It has little effect on noise from barking dogs in the background, however.

Despite my prior statement that official production of Daleks had ceased, two more Daleks (and one bastard Dalek that will likely remain unfinished) were created this weekend. One preexisting Dalek received an unplanned upgrade. Four Daleks now have interchangeable domes (!!!) and secret compartments. Yes -- they're almost like action toys! The aforementioned SC arts 'n' crafts article (working title: "Genesis of the Homemade Daleks") will be transmitted in two parts, the first of which will probably go up some time tonight or tomorrow.

I have also been fooling with Audacity in order to Dalekify my voice. Here are the test files for your listening pleasure:

So I've got this microphone working and found a decent sound recording program to use (Audacity, which I'm not sure I like as much as Wavepad on the desktop, but hey, Sourceforge for the win). Still, one thing I don't like about the setup is that I have to hold this microphone up while recording. Contrast this with the built-in monitor mic on the desktop that just kind of allowed me to sit there and talk -- much more conducive for audio reviews and general wackiness and whatnot.

So then I had the positively BRILLIANT idea of hooking the monitor mic up to the laptop. I mean, I'm still sitting in the same place (the laptop is where the keyboard was before) and I don't see any reason why it shouldn't work, so it seems like a good idea, right? Right? Yeah, well. There weren't any explosions or anything, but here's what I ended up recording despite the fact that my voice sounds very little like a fuzzy Spanish radio broadcast. Your guess is as good as mine.

Maybe I can find a clip or something to clip the other mic to my shirt for recording goodness. Except I don't always wear a shirt when I'm sitting at the computer. In fact, I happen to be shirtless at this very moment. Yep. Try not to drool on your keyboard when you think about that.

...click here for my best attempt to reproduce a song I overheard in a dream last night, or at least what I can remember of it. (The recording is less than 20 seconds long, so hopefully you won't find it to be too painful.) I'm thinking of trying to flesh it out and turn it into something for Crayon Poetry Corner.

Other things that happened in the dream -- I was in one of my old high school classrooms at the end of the day with two fellow students, neither of whom I have thought about in years and one of whom I couldn't and can't even remember by name (so to make up for it in the dream, I constantly referred to the other one by name). The nameless one was trying to give me these two heaping styrofoam containers of french fries and marinated shrimp and egg fried rice she said she'd acquired for me from fancy restaurants, but seeing as how the fries had the words "Burger King" written on them (which is weird, because I've never seen a fry from Burger King or anywhere else that had the restaurant name somehow burned onto its surface) I had my doubts about their origin. In any case, I couldn't carry both containers, so I was trying to get out of there with only one -- the fried rice container -- which made her incredibly sad because she wanted me to have both so I had to try to convince her that I wasn't trying to insult her by taking only one of them. (more...)